Scientific Method: Toilet Paper Lab 12/18/18 – 12/20/18

Purpose Suppose you are a scientist working for a consumer-testing agency, which evaluates the effectiveness of various consumer products. You have been asked to evaluate three brands of toilet paper to determine which brand has the greatest strength when wet.

State the Problem Which brand of toilet paper will hold the most beads when wet?

Background Information (research) Examine each brand of tissue. Think of things such as the papers’ texture (rough, smooth, scratchy) thickness, etc. Make observations using your 5 senses! Tissue ?):_________________________

HYPOTHESIS (Claim): Make a prediction about the outcome of the experiment: _____________toilet paper will be the strongest because _______________________

Identify the Variables Identify the variables in this experiment: Independent Variable: (the one thing you are changing each time)_______ Dependent Variable: (what are you counting or measuring) _______ Control: (what are you keeping the same each time) ________

MATERIALS: 3 squares of ­­__ toilet paper 3 squares of __ toilet paper 1 plastic beaker with water and dropper A bag of beads Water (in a plastic cup) .

PROCEDURE: (Write down each step of the procedure that you and your partners followed. If you repeat steps, you may say “repeat steps…”.)

Other Qualitative Observations DATA AND RESULTS Toilet Paper Trial # of Drops of Water # of Beads Mean TP 1 1 2 3 TP 2 TP 3 Other Qualitative Observations

Graph the Data

Conclusion Summarize your results – which toilet paper was the strongest? What information (evidence) convinced you that this toilet paper was the strongest? Look at your graph. Make an inference - why do you think that the toilet paper that was the strongest outperformed the others? Restate your hypothesis – was it correct or not? If you were to perform this experiment again, what would you change in your procedure? Why would you make those changes?